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Reese Burdette preparing for Christmas a month after kidney transplant


Reese Burdette may be recovering from a kidney transplant, but that hasn’t stopped the 10-year-old Mercersburg girl from getting in the Christmas spirit. 

Reese Burdette is ready for the holidays as she poses at her at her Mercersburg home. Burdette recently received a new kidney and is back home, getting ready for the holidays.(Photo: Markell DeLoatch, Public Opinion)

Since arriving home from the hospital on Nov. 24, she has been busy getting ready for the holiday by making ornaments, helping her mother wrap presents and take care of the Christmas cards, and even doing some online shopping for gifts for her family. 

“She looks great, she feels great, so obviously (she and the kidney are) a good match at this point,” Reese’s mother, Claire, said. 

Reese had previously spent two years at Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in Baltimore, recovering from severe burns and other injuries she received in a fire at her grandparents’ house over Memorial Day weekend in 2014. In September, Reese found out she was in the final stages of renal failure and would need a transplant. 

Luckily, the family found a donor shortly thereafter – 32-year-old special education teacher Alyssa Hussey. Reese went in for surgery on Nov. 20, and was released a few days later on that following Friday. It was her third consecutive Thanksgiving spent in a hospital. 

Since then, Claire said her daughter has been doing really well and feels good. Doctors are continuing to monitor her blood work, and they are trying to get her medication leveled out, which requires trips to Johns Hopkins about three times a week. Reese is also exited about the removal of her dialysis port which was scheduled for Thursday. 

However, the young girl is also in a 100-day isolation period, Claire said, due to her suppressed immune system and to keep her body from rejecting the kidney. This means she can’t be in public areas with large crowds. Claire added that hopefully this will end in late February or early March. 

In addition to being isolated, Reese has to drink four liters of water a day – or 12 ounces every hour for 12 hours – for the next couple of months. 

“She’s doing it, she accepts it, and she knows she has to do it, but it’s still just a challenge,” Claire said. 

But it’s still business as usual for the young girl. She is currently attending school with the help of a robot which allows her to see what’s happening in class, and Claire said she even got to ride a horse in carriage and see Santa in Greencastle, because the event was outside and approved by her doctors. She added Reese also plans to do some baking with her grandmother once school is out. 

However, because she is in isolation, the family has had to make some adjustments with their holiday traditions this year. For example, because she can’t be in public places, Reese had to shop online instead of going to stores. 

“We’re trying to do all our traditions as we’ve always done them, we are just improvising a bit this year,” Claire said. 

This is the second Christmas the family will spend at home since the fire, Claire said. To celebrate the holiday, the family will be with Reese’s father’s family on Christmas Eve, and then with her mother’s family on Christmas Day – as long as everyone is healthy. 

And that’s the way Reese likes it. 

“She is a child of tradition. She likes to do things as she always did,” Claire said. 

Because the kidney transplant has opened up the chance for Reese to eat food she couldn’t before, Claire said this year she’ll be enjoying lots of hashbrown casserole, cheeseball and freshly squeezed orange juice on Christmas morning. 

“She just loves everything about Christmas – being with everybody, giving, baking – she just loves all of that just like any other kid,” Claire said. 

And as a mother, Claire said she is just happy to be home and celebrating the holiday with their family – like they always have. 

“We have made it work in the past and celebrated in different ways, but this year, we truly know how to celebrate it together, and like Reese knows, the true meaning of giving, it doesn’t always have to be a present that you wrap up,” she said. “You can give in other ways.” 

Source: Public Opinion


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